


Established History

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Series: Fictober 2019 [24]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 10:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21242507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: The Doctor finds a message left for him, directing him to one of the worst places in history to bring a companion. But when he arrives, everything is not as it should be.





	Established History

“Looks like somebody wants your attention, Doctor.”

The Doctor looked up from his instruments at Charley. “What makes you say that?”

Charley gestured towards the scanner she had been watching in flight for the past several minutes. Charley very much enjoyed watching the scanner in flight. It was like looking out of a carriage window with a pair of binoculars that automatically zoomed in on the interesting bits. The Doctor looked at what the scanner was currently displaying. A featureless asteroid in the middle of nowhere space.

“I don’t see how this is-” the Doctor started, but Charley cut him off.

“Wait for it.”

They waited for a few seconds and watched the asteroid turn. The Doctor still failed to see what he was supposed to be looking for, or why Charley had drawn his attention to the scanner in the first place.

“Charley-”

“Wait for it.”

The Doctor breathed out, gathering his patience, and turned his gaze back towards the scanner. He was about to ask Charley for clarification again, but with the turning of the asteroid came into view something different. Letters and numbers carved into the side. It would take a not-insignificant amount of power to do that, the Doctor thought. He read the letters and numbers as they came into view, and as the asteroid completed a rotation he saw the complete message.

“Doctor. Come see,” he read out loud.

“Not exactly being subtle, are they?” Charley quipped. “What are the numbers though?”

“Spatio-temporal coordinates,” the Doctor answered, and continued in response to Charley’s blank stare. “Someone’s telling us where and when to go.”

“And where and when do they want us to go?” Charley asked, clearly interested.

The Doctor typed the coordinates into the TARDIS console and read what came up. His gasp and frown told Charley that maybe she shouldn’t be so excited.

“I suppose it’s not a good place to go?” Charley sounded a little dejected.

The Doctor took a deep breath. “Charley, you must understand, the future is a vast place, and many events transpire that perhaps we’d rather they hadn’t, but sometimes we can’t-”

“Just tell me, Doctor,” Charley interrupted again. “If it’s something bad that happens to the Earth in my future, I’ve already thought about the subject.”

The Doctor nodded, glad for her understanding. “In the mid-2100s, the Earth was invaded by the Daleks. Most of the population was wiped out, but eventually resistance groups managed to thwart the Dalek plans and reclaim the planet. It set them back about 200 years in development, but the Earth recovered eventually.”

“And you know this in detail, because?” Charley coaxed.

“...I might have been there for some of it,” the Doctor admitted.

“I knew it,” Charley boasted, before coming back to the relevant topic. “So, I assume that’s where the coordinates will take us?”

“Right at the start of the invasion,” the Doctor confirmed. “Several years before we turned up.” To Charley’s surprise, he sighed, a sound bursting with nostalgia. “I really must go and visit Susan one day.”

“Susan?”

“My granddaughter,” the Doctor explained. “She stayed behind on Earth after we helped defeat the Daleks. I haven’t seen her in a very long time.”

He shook his head. Not the right time, he thought. This needed investigating.

“This could be rather a bumpy adventure, Charley,” he warned. “We’re going right into the frying pan this time.”

“Let’s hope we can avoid the fire, then,” Charley added.

“Come now, Charley, when has that ever happened?” he smiled.

Charley said nothing in return, only laughing briefly before turning her expression serious again. She knew this wouldn’t be easy. Not only seeing her home planet destroyed, but encountering the Daleks again. The prospect did not appeal to her, but it was necessary: someone really wanted the Doctor to see something. She steeled herself, holding onto the console as the TARDIS entered the Time Vortex and was tossed around by the winds of history. They flew through centuries across space, the stars whirling by as they descended upon one of the darkest chapters in the history of humanity. Finally they landed, and, prepared for the worst, the Doctor and Charley Pollard looked each other in the eye, nodded an unspoken message of support and love to each other, and stepped out of the TARDIS to a sunny day, birdsong, and a fascinating lack of Daleks anywhere.

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, closed it, opened it again, closed it again, held up one finger to Charley and dashed back inside the TARDIS, emerging seconds later with a very puzzled look on his face.

“Did we arrive early, Doctor?” Charley asked with false nonchalance.

“We did not,” the Doctor answered, and Charley’s smug look was replaced with one of equal puzzlement to the Doctor’s. “We’re on time. The Dalek invasion should be happening right now.”

They stood in silence, admiring the lovely weather.

“It isn’t.”

“I can see that.”

They went back to silence, but the silence was broken by a very familiar wheezing and groaning above them, as a familiar equine shape with far too many engines attached faded into existence over their heads, descending swiftly and landing on the ground beside them. The Rider dismounted, adjusted her leather jacket, and walked towards them, beaming at the Doctor.

“Oh,” Charley sighed.

“Hi!” the Rider greeted the Doctor and ignored Charley, looking very pleased with herself.

“What did you do?”

The Rider gasped in mock offence. “_Me_? What in the name of good manners makes you think _I_ did _anything_?”

“What. Did you do?”

The Rider couldn't hold back her face dominating smile any longer. Charley thought it would be a lovely smile if she could trust it as far as she could throw it. “I stopped it.”

“You. Stopped it,” the Doctor repeated back to her.

“Mhm,” the Rider nodded excitedly, barely able to keep still, talking almost too fast to be heard properly. “The invasion. The deaths. I know how much you like the Earth and I thought that you would hate all the deaths here so I stopped the invasion from happening. See, I did what you said I should and did something good, I saved all the people.”

“Please don’t pretend you care about the people,” Charley shot her a disgusted glance. “I know you don’t know anything about us mere humans,” her sarcasm could have been cut with a knife, “but we in general don’t like being patronised and lied to.”

The Rider acknowledged none of what Charley had said and kept her attention focused solely on the Doctor. “So? Are you happy? Impressed?”

The Doctor stood with his mouth slightly agape for a few seconds, to the point that Charley was sorely tempted to poke him, but just before she became unable to resist the urge, he sighed.

“What do they teach at the Academy these days?” he held his head in his hand. “Rather, what do they not teach you?”

The Rider frowned. “Not impressed? I finally did something you would want me to do, I interfered for the better, isn’t that what you always do? I changed the story! I gave it a happy ending! Isn't that what you'd want me to do?”

“You can’t change history, Rider,” the Doctor answered. “Not one line.”

The Rider looked downcast, and for a second Charley felt genuinely sorry for her, despite everything. She had tried so hard to impress the Doctor, and he was nothing but disappointed. It was only in this moment that Charley realised just how much the Rider had been inspired by the Doctor, and as she looked at him, she saw the Doctor was realising that too.

“I have to put it back,” the Doctor said. “You had the right idea, and I am impressed, but this isn’t something you can just change on a whim.” He tried to lift her spirits, but they could both see that he hadn’t succeeded.

The Rider just nodded slowly. “I put a few asteroids in the Daleks’ way, reduced the fleet enough that invasion wasn’t possible. It should be easy to fix.” She spat that last word, more to herself than the Doctor.

The Doctor raised his hand to place it on her shoulder in support, but changed his mind at the last second. “Thank you,” he said, and turned back to the TARDIS, Charley following.

“Are you really that angry at her?” Charley asked when she was confident the Rider could no longer hear them.

“No,” the Doctor replied. “And much as I hate to sound like a cliché, I’m honestly more disappointed. She could do so much good if she just...cared a little more.”

Charley didn’t have a response to that. Instead she looked at the scanner, shocked at how much she felt sorry for the Rider.

As the TARDIS left, the Rider angled her eyes up to look at the fading blue box. “I’ll impress you,” she muttered. “I’ll make you take notice. You just watch.”


End file.
